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EPA Vote Expected as Early as Today

President Obama gave a speech on energy yesterday which included platitudes decrying the use of “gimmicks” and “slogans” such as “drill, baby, drill” when discussing further progress in domestic energy exploration. However, conspicuously located in the background of the President’s presentation was the highly non-gimmicky “winning the future”, which has been the slogan for increased taxpayer subsidies for highly inefficient wind and solar power.

President Obama’s presentation was not all bad news for proponents of increased hydro-carbon (oil, gas, etc.) exploration. The President proclaimed the need for increased production of natural gas and off-shore oil. As usual, we hope his actions match his rhetoric.

He also questionably suggested a cut of about one-third of our foreign importation of oil. On the surface this sounds immaculate if replaced by increased domestic oil production, but as Charles Krauthammer astutely noted, the President cited a statistic on oil importation from 2009. U.S. imported 11 million barrels of oil in 2009, due to the recession we now import roughly 9.7 million, the difference is equivalent to the President’s proposed one-third reduction. I guess statistical gimmicks are exempt from our conversation.

Gimmick free Republicans in Congress have taken square aim at the Environmental Protection Agency’s imperial regulatory abuses. A vote is expected as early as today, as Republicans in the Senate hope to thwart the EPA’s backdoor cap and trade regulations.

The EPA’s carbon emission regulations would potentially destroy over 1.4 million jobs and reduce business investment in the United States by 15 percent. U.S. GDP would be lowered by half a trillion dollars, while energy and gas prices would sky rocket if an emboldened EPA has its way. All of this in the name of global warming, which the proposed regulations will have a negligible effect on due to rising emissions from China and India.

Also, carbon is a ubiquitous element in the atmosphere and encompasses every part of our daily lives. If the EPA secures a mandate to regulate carbon, then there is basically nothing that is exempt from their ambitious scope. Unelected command and control technocrats will be able to regulate every aspect of our economy with impunity.

All is not lost. Senator Inhofe has promised to relentlessly introduce legislation designed to stymie the EPA’s administrative overreach, irrespective of today’s outcome in the Senate. Judging by the President’s speech on the need for expansive and affordable energy, we hope he embraces this legislation as well.

Keep the pressure on your elected representatives to do the right thing for our country, economy and jobs.

Americans already face a $1.8 trillion regulatory burden. These heavy costs are passed on by businesses to consumers, who spend almost a quarter of their annual income complying with regulations often approved executive-level agencies, which have effectively become the fourth branch of the federal government.

We all know that Congress has some big ticket items on its agenda for next year - repealing ObamaCare, balancing the budget, reining the president’s executive authority, but receiving less attention than perhaps they should are a number of smaller regulatory battles in which the new Republican majority could make a real difference.

As one of our over 6.6 million FreedomWorks activists nationwide, I urge you to contact your representative and ask him or her to vote YES on the Waters of the United States Regulatory Overreach Act, H.R. 5078. Sponsored by Rep. Steve Southerland, this bill would stop another massive overreach of authority by the Environmental Protection Agency that threatens the property rights of thousands of Americans.

The Pebble Project would not only bring a new copper and gold mine to Alaska, it would bring an economic boom to the region with nationwide effects. Too bad that it was blocked by the EPA before it was even given a chance.

Precedent is a powerful thing. Once something has been established as acceptable behavior, there will inevitably be a flood of eager followers. That is why trailblazers get all the credit. The brave souls who test the waters, who first go where no one else dares, who push the envelope and set the stage for the rest of us. In many walks of life, such as science, exploration, and philosophy, these people are heroes, pushing mankind forward even when it is dangerous to do so. In politics, however, the trailblazer all too often covers territory that would have been better left unexplored.

UPDATE: FreedomWorks activists sent over 4,000 messages to the EPA to stop the proposed rule that would have given the agency the power to garnish the wages of private citizens. A notice published in the Federal Register formally withdrew the rule. The EPA had previously stated that they would withdraw the rule if adverse comments were received by August 1.

When the Clean Water Act was first conceived, the EPA could only restrict entrepreneurs when they attempted to pollute bodies of water that were used by their fellow businesses, or what the EPA calls ‘navigable waters.’ However, its original mission is far too modest for modern-day bureaucrats.

Monday’s Supreme Court ruling on the EPA is getting some confused news coverage from people unsure of the actual impact of the Court’s decision. First of all, it is important to note that this case has nothing to do with the recent, controversial expansion of the EPA’s powers as adeptly covered by Julie Borowski here. Instead, this case addressed an earlier attempt from the EPA to solidify its ability to broadly regulate greenhouse gas emissions for virtually everyone in the United States.